The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Ranunculus bulbosus
Also called Bulbous buttercup, Blister Flower, Bulbous Crowfoot, Gowan, Yellow Weed, Bulbous Crowsfoot, Cuckoo Buds
A low perennial buttercup with bright yellow glossy flowers and a swollen corm-like base, found in lawns, pastures and hay fields. It thrives in open, sunny sites with nutrient-poor, well-drained soil.
Ranunculus bulbosus, commonly known as bulbous buttercup or St. Anthony's turnip, is a perennial flowering plant in the buttercup family Ranunculaceae. It has bright yellow flowers, and deeply divided, three-lobed long-petioled basal leaves.
The native range of Ranunculus bulbosus is Western Europe between about 60°N and the Northern Mediterranean coast. It grows in both the eastern and western parts of North America as an introduced weed.
This plant, like other buttercups, contains the toxic glycoside ranunculin, which gives it a bitter, acrid taste, so cases of poisoning in humans are rare. It is also avoided by livestock when fresh, but when the plant dries the toxin is lost, so hay containing the plant is safe for animal consumption. Pigs are unaffected by the toxin and eat bulbous buttercups avidly, being prepared to travel long distances to find them; hence the folk name of the plant, St. Anthony's Turnip, after the patron saint of swineherds.
Littleleaf buttercup · Aconite-leaf buttercup · Meadow buttercup · White water crowfoot · Asian Buttercup · Brackish Water-crowfoot · Ranunculus calandrinioides · California buttercup · Greater creeping spearwort · Glacier buttercup · Ranunculus gramineus · Ivy buttercup
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Ranunculus bulbosus by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
Pet safety from the ASPCA toxic and non-toxic plant lists.
